On Amazons
by booksandreadingismylife
Summary: "She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience." If the world was going to take everything she loved and wanted, then she would do the same. And damn anybody that tried to stop her. They could all burn. ... or Bellatrix Black and all the reasons she fights and hurts and kills and dies. Part of the "On Stars" series.


**So, I'm supposed to be working on _Oh Merlin!_ But I got stuck and then I got hit with a plot bunny and wrote this instead. Yay! So this work along with the others in this series can all stand alone. They will all be character studies of the various members of the Black Family (there's so much we don't know and so much between the lines!). Feel free to assume that these character interpretations are canonical for anything Harry Potter I write unless stated otherwise.**

**Bellatrix Lestrange is one of the characters whose motivations we know least about (I'm throwing JKR's canon of her being in love with Voldemort out the window here) so here she is as a loyal, passionate, deeply flawed person whose morality is centred on family.**

**(Yes, I did make Bellatrix a burn-the-world-down-out-of-spite-and-grief person. Deal with it.)**

**Trigger Warning - There is brief discussion of still birth. See end notes for details**

* * *

**. . .**

_"She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience."_

**. . .**

Harry eyed his godfather with confusion and slight suspicion. "Is this a trick question?" he asked flatly.

Sirius smiled at him.

"She went to Azkaban for torturing Neville's parents into insanity. Of course, she's a bad person!"

"Ah! But she was my favourite cousin growing up."

Harry stared at him with mingled shock and horror.

Sirius sighed. "She wasn't always-" He waved his hand to indicate insane or sadistic or something of the sort "-like _that._" He said for lack of a better word. "She always loved family fiercely and would have died for us. Or killed, I suppose. We all would have. Family first. That's what it means to be a Black."

Harry was still staring at him.

"When I was a kid, I adored her. More than Cissy, more than Andy. Bella was my favourite. We've nearly duelled to the death more than once and she barely spoke to me after I was sorted into Gryffindor, but she liked me when I was younger. Thought I was mad. I was… well, I was a Gryffindor in a family full of Slytherins." He searched for a way to illustrate to Harry what he meant. "I-"

"She was family?" Harry's voice was hesitant, and his hand was slightly raised as though he didn't know what to do with it.

**. . .**

_"A woman with thick, shining dark hair, long eyelashes and heavily hooded eyes"_

**. . .**

"What are you doing?"

"Go away."

"What are you doing?"

"I said leave."

"I said what are you doing?"

"Sirius! Go. Away."

"But you didn't answer the question. Mum says your supposed to answer questions, not ignore the person asking them."

Bellatrix wanted to scream in frustration. Six years old was _clearly_ an obnoxious age for her cousin.

"Sirius." She fought to keep her voice even, as was proper, and not act like a screaming harpy of a mudblood. "I'm busy. Leave."

"But you-"

"Siri! There you are! What are you doing?" Thank Merlin for Andy. She could deal with him.

"Bella won't talk to me." Aaaaand now she was the bad guy.

"Siri, I'm happy to talk to you. Really, I am." _Liar, liar_. "But right now, I'm doing something, so maybe later."

"No, you're not! You're just looking at yourself in the mirror!" Morgana save her. Had she ever been that awful?

"Are you doing make-up?" Andy stepped into the room.

"No! I'm trying an aura spell."

"You're doing make-up!" _Fuck_. "I thought that was for little girls who were sheep with no concept of elegance?"

Damn little sisters. "It's good to see what the masses are doing."

"Right." Andy had mastered Grandmother Melania's unimpressed tone. "Because doing so requires your own blush and eyeshadow."

"Bella's being a sheee-eeeep." Sirius sing-songed from where he had climbed onto her bed.

"I am not! Now get out before I hex you!"

Sirius pouted. Andy raised an eyebrow.

"Fine. Stay then." She turned back to the mirror and lifted the mascara wand.

"So, you are doing make-up." Bellatrix's hand jerked at her little sister's voice and she had to suppress a curse when she nearly stabbed herself in the eye.

"Yes! Fine. I'm doing make-up. Happy?"

"Not particularly. You're supposed to be watching us you know. Not making Cissy and I look after the boys."

Bellatrix sighed. She wasn't going to get rid of her sister. If you can't beat them… "Get Cissy and Reggie."

She pretended not to notice the way that Andy lit up or the grin on Sirius' face that no proper pureblood should wear.

Once Reggie had joined Sirius on her bed, she beckoned her sisters over to the dressing table and picked up the mascara wand again. "Ok, so if you want to make your eyes look big and coy…"

**. . .**

Sirius smiled at his godson and grabbed Harry's hand, using it to tug him closer, before embracing him and resting his head on his hair. After ruffling it into an even more messy state, of course.

"She was family." He agreed. "I remember her best the way she was this one summer, I can't have been much older than about seven or eight. Me and Reg were having trouble sitting still and quiet at this big family dinner we were having. She was about 17. It must have been right before her last year at Hogwarts. Back when her parents and grandfather Arcturus were sorting out her betrothal to Rodolphus Lestrange. She was sitting next to the two of us. She was supposed to be making sure we behaved. I remember that every time me and Reg looked like we were about to make a fuss, she'd slip us some sweets. That's how I remember her. As the cool older cousin who used to slip me sweets under the table. That's the Bellatrix that I miss. Not the half mad woman who gets off on torture and causing pain."

**. . .**

_"Dear Bellatrix, who likes to play with her food before she eats it."_

**. . .**

"I don't want to." Her daughter's voice was petulant and Druella Black née Rosier sighed.

"I don't care. Your aunt has just given birth to the next heir to the Black family. One day he will be your Head of Family and you will answer to him. We are going to go in and give our congratulations as a family and that is that."

"But-"

"No arguments." Dear Merlin, why couldn't she be more like her younger sisters?

"Fine then!" Bellatrix stuck her nose in the air and flounced into the room like an angry teenager, her two sisters following docilely behind. Where Bella led, they followed, every damn time. At this rate she was going to be grey by thirty. She could only hope that none of her daughters followed her lead and got themselves pregnant at fifteen!

"She's just like you, you know." Druella shot a glare at her husband over her shoulder and flounced into the room after her daughters without deigning to respond.

"Now you support his head like this. That's right - don't want to drop him. There you go." Walburga Black gently guided Bellatrix in holding her baby cousin, and Andromeda and Narcissa both leaned up on their tiptoes to see his face.

Druella couldn't help her smile as Bellatrix's whole face softened. "Hello, Sirius. I'm your big cousin. We're going to be great friends."

"He's ugly." Narcissa, in her five-year-old wisdom, decided. And there was the peaceful moment gone.

"Narcissa!"

"No, Cissy's right. He's all squished. But he'll definitely be cool when he's older." Andy, ever the peacemaker, announced exactly how it was going to be from now on. "I want to hold him now." Or not.

Looking at the newborn face of her nephew as her daughters squabbled over who exactly had the right to hold him, Druella could only hope that this would be the only time he caused an argument amongst her daughters, as unlikely as that would be.

**. . .**

"She was human." Harry said the words slowly. Sirius couldn't see his face with the way they were sitting, but he was willing to bet his wand that he was wearing the expression that Lily used to whenever she was mulling something over and chewing the words as they came out. Like that was going to help her make sense of them.

"Yes, she was. My family was full of horrible, terrible people. Pureblood supremacists to the core. But if there was one thing that we all had in common it was that every single one of us would tear to shreds anyone that tried to hurt our family. Don't get me wrong, we were all on different sides and there was a point where we all hated _at least _one other member of the family and would happily have murdered them. But we were still a family. Disowned or not. Married or not. Black by name or by birth alone. Family came first, always. Even if you hated them. Hell, _especially_ if you hated them. No one was allowed to hurt a Black unless they were another Black."

"I can't really see that." Harry admitted. "I mean, I'd protect the Dursley's, sure. But that's because if something happened to them it'd be my fault. I wouldn't go out of my way to keep them safe or anything." He shrugged. "You're my family. You and Remus and Hermione and the Weasleys." Sirius tried not to let his face show how ecstatic he was at Harry describing him as "family", but he was pretty sure he'd failed. It was a good thing Harry wasn't looking at him. Sirius would be floating and ecstatic for _weeks_.

"So, for us," Sirius clamped down on the thrill at being able to include himself in Harry's family and made sure his voice didn't show it, "you'd do the same thing."

"Well, yeah." Harry shrugged but his voice had that unique "No, duh" tone that Sirius had only ever heard from James.

"Bellatrix," he sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Bellatrix was flawed, yes. But she felt things deeply. In the end I think that's what broke her."

**. . .**

_"Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom."_

**. . .**

"Bellatrix?" Rodolphus crouched down in front of his wife and gently rested his hand on her shoulder. She stared at him blankly.

"Yes?" Her voice was raspy from lack of use and Rodolphus wanted to cry. He resisted the urge but grasped her hands and squeezed them gently. She'd barely spoken in weeks, and even then, only when absolutely necessary.

"Do you need anything, darling?"

Bellatrix slowly shook her head.

"Water? Food? Tea?"

"Tea?" It was a question rather than any sort of affirmation, but Rodolphus summoned a house elf to bring her Earl Grey with lemon anyway.

He watched as she slowly brought the cup to her lips and inhaled, before placing it back on the saucer without drinking any.

"Is- Is there something _wrong_ with me?" Her voice broke on the word "wrong" and Rodolphus felt his heart crack slightly along with it.

"No! No, this is not your fault! Do you hear me, darling? This is not your fault." Rodolphus buried his face in her hair.

"Then whose fault is it?! Things like this don't just happen! They don't! They just don't." Bellatrix started crying and he embraced his wife and rocked her gently. He determinedly did not think about the reason that he had learned to rock in the first place. There wasn't room for both of them to break down at the same time. The Dark Lord did not approve of weakness, not even in cases as understandable as this.

"Shhh. Shhh. I'm here. I'm here, I've got you."

"He was perfect, and- and beautiful."

"He was just as amazing as you."

Bellatrix abruptly stood up. "I'm going to make them pay."

"Darling, no! The healer said you had to rest."

"Damn the healer! They will pay." Bellatrix's eyes were crazed, her gaze darting around to every corner of the room. He grasped her shoulders and let his hands slide down her arms until he was clutching her hands.

"Who? Who will pay? Bellatrix, please. I'm hurting too!" The last sentence made her eyes snap to his and all of the anger drained out of her.

"Can we visit the grave again today?" He'd taken her to the grave every day since it had been there. Rab had arranged it when he'd been too busy trying to comfort his wife and cope with his own grief to think of it. Bless his little brother for helping unasked.

"Of course." In the weeks since, she'd never once asked.

He helped her put on her cloak and guided her out of the door and to the family plot on the edge of the grounds, where all Lestranges were buried. Where the two of them would one day be laid to rest.

Rabastan was nowhere to be seen, not since he'd rushed out of the house earlier after a floo call from Barty. He distantly hoped that everything was ok but couldn't bring himself to feel more than an absent curiosity. These days he was numb to anything that wasn't his wife or brother. Even when he was summoned to his Lord's side, he had difficulty feeling anything more than apathy.

They finally arrived at the gravesite and Bellatrix sank to her knees in front of the gravestone. He stood behind her to allow her to lean on him. It was his job to be strong right now. He'd seen the grave before but read the words again anyway.

_Rigel Rabastan Lestrange_

_5 October 1979 – 5 October 1979_

_Taken before he had a chance to live_

_Toujours fidèle_

Rodolphus would never have thought that losing an unborn child could hurt so much. He had never been more wrong. He raised his wand and murmured "_Orchideous_". A bouquet of white chrysanthemums and daisies appeared, and he used them to cover the slightly wilted flowers already lying on the grave.

"Thank you." Bellatrix murmured. Her wand remained in her pocket. She had not cast a spell since their son was born still and unbreathing.

He placed his hand on her shoulder and addressed his son's grave. "_Tu me manques_." _You are missing from me_. He knelt beside his wife. "Let Rigel be the last person we lose in this war."

Her burning, tear-filled eyes met his. "I will destroy anyone who tries."

Their walk back to the manor was the most energetic in weeks. The energy carried him all the way into the entrance hall, where a solemn, drawn Rabastan stood. He didn't need to hear the words. His brother's face spoke volumes. "Who?"

Rab closed his eyes and flinched. "Regulus." He said, like the word hurt him.

Rodolphus gripped his wife's hand tighter as the words sank in and reached a hand to his brother. He drew Bellatrix closer and _hoped_. Seven years of marriage had taught him that while his wife was incredibly strong, she felt deeply. Losing Rigel had destroyed a vital part of her. A part of them both. He could only hope that this news didn't break her completely.

"How?" The word was torn out of her, as though she didn't want to know but couldn't bear not to.

"We don't know." Rab looked like every word he spoke burned. Regulus and he had been as close as siblings since the elder Black brother had run away, and Merlin knew Rab saw all three of those boys as little brothers. This news must be devastating to him. "Evan woke up this morning and Reg was just- gone." His poor brother's voice broke on the last word, and Rodolphus used the grip on his hand to draw him into an embrace, unable to let go of his wife for fear of what would happen if he did.

"If he was just missing then he might not be- might not be gone." Bellatrix's voice shook, but her tone was determined.

Rab pulled away from his brother to look his sister-in-law right in the eye. "After he discovered Reg missing, Evan turned the entire flat upside down. His wand was gone too, and the wards said he left in the middle of the night, after Evan fell asleep. Evan called Barty, and he went to Grimmauld Place to check if he was there while Evan called around to the others. They didn't want to bother us – we're still in mourning and if they were wrong-" Rab stopped and took a deep breath. "Barty found Mrs Black hysterical in front of the tapestry." Bellatrix shut her eyes and shook her head, raising a hand as if to silence his brother, but Rab ploughed on regardless, as though he had to finish now that he'd started. "Reg's spot on the family tree was faded. He died this morning. Barty cast a diagnostic to be sure. The tapestry updated itself with his death less than two hours after Reg left the flat."

Bellatrix collapsed onto the floor, unable to hold herself up any longer. Eyes squeezed shut, she clutched at Rodolphus' hand like a lifeline. He himself was in shock, probably. That's what the healer had said this was a few weeks ago when his son had been born dead.

Rabastan stared blankly at the floor. "He's gone." He said, voice empty. "Reg's gone."

Bellatrix didn't scream, didn't utter a sound, but every piece of glass, crystal and china in the entrance hall shattered at once as her magic exploded outwards and the pieces turned to dust before they hit the ground.

**. . .**

"I don't understand." Harry shifted so that he could look up at Sirius but didn't lose the arm that his godfather had draped over his shoulders.

"Family was everything to Bellatrix. And she started losing her family one by one. By the time you were born, the only family she had that she could really acknowledge was Narcissa and her son Draco. Parents and grandparents didn't count the same way. The five of us grew up together and it was assumed that our kids would too. But by 1980 Andy was disowned, Reg was dead, and I was as good as, given that I was working for the Order." Sirius hesitated at leaving out a few details. But that wasn't his to share, and crazy, sadistic madwoman or not, Bellatrix didn't deserve to have that spread around. Not with how devastated she'd been afterwards.

**. . .**

_"Bellatrix Black, which was connected by a double line to Rodolphus Lestrange"_

**. . .**

**_Dear Miss Black,_**

**_How have your summer holidays been thus far? Has anything interesting happened, or have your cousins been well-behaved for once? Any drama in your sisters' lives?_**

**_My brother has been driving me mad. "What's Hogwarts like? Who's Professor Durban? Is potions cool? Are the mudbloods really stupid and ugly? Is the sorting hard?"_**

**_You would think that having seen me go to Hogwarts and return for the last seven years would have made him run out of questions. Sadly, that is not the case. His start at Hogwarts this September has led to an avalanche of new questions. I have barely a moment of peace._**

**_Of course, to listen to Selwyn talk, you'd think his younger siblings are well-behaved pureblood prodigies. HA! My mother was at a luncheon at the Selwyn Manor the other day and apparently they were behaving quite immaturely. Certainly far more childishly than scions of such a prominent family should._**

**_I also heard that…_**

**_…_**

**_…I heard about your sister. I'm terribly sorry for your loss. I know you are unlikely to have need of it, but if you require a shoulder or an ear, then mine are available. Marriage is a partnership of equals and requires work. We do not love each other now, but that does not mean we must be bound for an unhappy, loveless marriage._**

**_Dearly yours,_**

**_Your fianc_****_é, _****_Rodolphus Lestrange_**

**. . .**

"So, losing her family turned her mad?" Harry had no tact whatsoever. Although in hindsight, neither Lily nor James had ever been particularly tactful, so why their son would be he had no idea.

"That's a gross oversimplification."

"But yes."

"Sort of. I guess, thinking of her, there is one other memory that sticks out. The one that in hindsight is probably what got her started down the path to the person she is now. It was the summer right before I started Hogwarts. Bella was engaged and getting married that winter. Andy had just finished that month. I remember all of us being summoned to my grandfather's study. I knew something was wrong because Andy wasn't there." Sirius paused.

"You always got told things together?"

"Back then? Yeah. The five of us were the future of the Black family. Three daughters to provide ties to other pureblood families. And the heir and the spare to the Black family. When something big went down the five of us would be summoned to Grandfather Arcturus' study and told whatever version it was that they wanted us to know. This time was the first time any of us got hit personally by the information we were told. I remember Reg clutching my hand like a lifeline. Or maybe I was clutching at him. And Uncle Cygnus and Grandfather Pollux sat us all down and said that Andy had been disowned for running off with a _mudblood_ and we were never to talk to her again."

"Wow. That's… harsh." Sirius couldn't help snorting at the understatement.

"I'll say it was. That's just how things were in my family."

"But- I mean- They just said never talk to your sister or cousin _ever again_ and you all just went along with it?"

"Well I didn't. I know Cissy wrote to her a few times before she got married but stopped writing after Dora was born. And I know Reg wrote to her once, because he was too chicken to send her an owl himself and asked me to send it to her when I wrote. Dunno if he ever got a letter back."

"And Bellatrix?" Harry sounded like he couldn't believe they were still talking about the same person that tortured the Longbottoms. If Sirius was honest, he couldn't either. 14 years and he still couldn't reconcile his older cousin with the woman who destroyed Lily's best friend.

"Dunno. She wouldn't have told us if she had though. She was the oldest and she had to set the example. Now, where was I?"

"Don't speak to your cousin _ever again_!" Harry was mocking him, the cheeky blighter. Sirius narrowed his eyes at him but continued.

"Right. Andy was disowned and we weren't to talk to her again. Well after that we all went real quiet. Bella was sat really stiffly next to me, and Cissy was all pale on the other side of Reg. Grandfather Pollux and Uncle Cygnus just stood there and stared at us for a long time. It was probably only about a minute or so, but it seemed like forever. When they were satisfied that the message had sunk in, they dismissed us and sent us out. We left and Cissy looked like she was about to start crying. Bella just turned around and said, "Good riddance." I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but I couldn't sleep that night and we were all staying at Grandfather Arcturus'. I was going to go to the kitchen to get some water or hot milk or something. I can't really remember what. I never ended up going. I got as far as the end of the hall, outside of Bella's room. She was crying. And not the silent kind of stoic tears that all purebloods are told is the only appropriate way to cry either. I mean truly heartbroken, gut wrenching sobs. The kind that start low and rip their way out. The kind that leave your throat and eyes sore and your mouth dry for hours after. The kind that you only cry when it hurts so much that you can barely breathe. I don't know how long I stood there listening, or how long she cried. I just remember running back to my room and hiding under the covers. Because Bella was the bravest, strongest, most untouchable person I knew. And she was wrecked. It was the first time I stopped seeing my invincible older cousin, and started seeing the flawed, passionate, deeply emotional woman underneath. It was the first time I realised that she cared just as deeply as I did."

"And that broke her?"

"It changed her." Sirius corrected. "That was when she started closing herself off and started getting more involved with the Knights of Walpurgis."

"The Knights of what?"

"Walpurgis. They were the precursors to the Death Eaters."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Harry was silent for a long while. "Do you miss her?"

"Sort of. I miss the Bellatrix I grew up with, the one that always used to help me get away with my pranks and taught me how to swear in French. The Death Eater Bellatrix? Her I don't miss. Hell, I don't even recognise her."

"So, when you say that everyone's got good and bad inside them…"

"Harry look at me." Sirius waited until Harry was looking him right in the eye. Killing curse green meeting stormy grey. "There is light and dark inside everyone. Bellatrix chose to act on the dark. That was her choice. No one else's. You are not a bad person."

**. . .**

_"I killed Sirius Black!"_

**. . .**

Somebody knocked on the door.

Bellatrix ignored them.

They knocked again.

She said nothing.

When they knocked a third time, she had had enough.

"Leave me in peace!" Her voice was vicious enough that no one in their right mind would consider persisting. With her husband and brother-in-law in Azkaban there was no one else who would have reason to do so.

"Bella, it's me." Her youngest sister entered and closed the door behind her.

"Seems little Cissy has a spine after all." She jibed, although her heart wasn't in it.

Narcissa cast a few privacy spells on the door. "I feel with you." She said quietly.

"Your idiot husband is the reason mine is even in Azkaban." Bellatrix didn't bother to keep her tone pleasant. She wanted to be left alone.

"That's not what I meant." Narcissa moved to join her sister at the window.

"Then what did you mean?" Her voice was quiet, but only an idiot would have missed the danger in it.

Narcissa was no idiot. She was however, a Black. And let it never be said that a Black backed down from a challenge. "He was my cousin too, you know."

Bellatrix stilled. "I do not mourn him." Her denial was swift and vicious, but her sister merely levelled her with an unimpressed glare.

"I do." The words were as much a challenge as an offer of empathy. "He was my favourite. Yours too, I imagine. I know Reg loved him to pieces, would have followed him anywhere until the day he couldn't."

Admitting such a thing would be weakness, and Bellatrix was the Dark Lord's most loyal and best Lieutenant, she had none. But … "I didn't mean to kill him."

If Narcissa had not been standing next to her, it was doubtful she would have heard. She remained silent, knowing her sister could not admit this, but needed to say it, nonetheless.

"It was _stupefy_. The spell I cast. It was _stupefy_."

"Accidents happen."

"Most accidents don't end with the murder of family members."

"He wasn't family!" Narcissa's voice was vicious. She'd had to remind herself of the fact too many times to let it go.

"Maybe not. But he felt like it. Leaving didn't make that change. Family is family, and for a Black that is sacred." Bellatrix voiced the thoughts that Narcissa had tried to ignore about both her second sister and her imprisoned cousin.

"And now there's just us."

"And now there's us." Bellatrix agreed.

The two of them remained in silent vigil at the window until the sun rose. And if either of them cried, they weren't going to tell anyone.

They mourned the last true born Heir of the Black family and made silent vows.

Narcissa would keep her vow and become the only person to successfully lie to the Dark Lord's face and live.

Bellatrix would break her vow, mere hours before her death. And maybe that contributed to the madness that overtook her. Maybe forgetting the pain of a lost child, even temporarily, was her punishment for breaking it. But she broke her vow and paid for it.

**. . .**

_Bellatrix Druella Black Lestrange _

_30 September 1951 – 2 May 1998_

_Toujours fidèle. Toujours pur_

_May she find in Death what she lost in Life_

**. . .**

* * *

**TW - There is brief (mostly implied and glossed over) discussion of a stillborn child starting at the quote about Bellatrix torturing the Longbottoms, and ending 4 small paragraphs after the gravestone epithet.**

**"Tu me manques" is french for "I miss you" but the literal translation is "You are missing from me" which I felt was appropriate for a parent to their stillborn child**

**"Toujours fidèle" means "Always faithful" and I've decided its the family motto for the Lestrange family**

**"Toujours pur" means "Always pure" and as you know, is the family motto of the Blacks**

**Yes the five Black cousins love each other, no I don't care if you disagree. Bellatrix's favourite cousin was Sirius and she cried after she killed him. Fight me. **

**Narcissa is not the only person who will do anything for family, No I do not care for your opinions.**

**And yes, Rodolphus and Bellatrix care about each other, who cares if their marriage was political?**


End file.
